


Let You Down

by WithThisShield



Series: Dom/switch/sub AU [2]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - BDSM, Child Abuse, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kaer Morhen, M/M, Protective Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Psychological Trauma, Subdrop, Subspace, Whump, Witcher Training (The Witcher)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:28:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24596038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WithThisShield/pseuds/WithThisShield
Summary: Lambert was fourteen, and he was pretty sure there was something wrong with him.In training at Kaer Morhen, a young Lambert discovers he’s the first submissive to survive the Trial of the Grasses, and he finds an unlikely ally in Geralt.(A prequel to My Sweetest Friend, but can be read as a standalone. Please mind the warnings!)
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Lambert
Series: Dom/switch/sub AU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1773550
Comments: 49
Kudos: 228





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: This work contains the on-screen sexual assault of a minor. It’s upsetting and not sexy. The events here are formative traumas for Lambert in this AU, but you can totally keep reading the main fic without this, so please take care of yourselves!

Lambert was fourteen, and he was pretty sure there was something wrong with him.

He’d survived the Trial of the Grasses last year. From his cohort of eighteen trainees, only five boys made it through, but he was one of them. Lambert and Voltehre and three others rose from their cots after a week of torture, sweating and shaking and weak from the after-effects, and were moved to a new, smaller dormitory. It felt fucking empty. He still had nightmares about Henrik in the bunk beside him, screaming and vomiting blood until his eyes rolled back and he stopped breathing.

But now Lambert was fourteen and he was growing into man, or at least he _should_ be, except his Dominant voice still hadn’t come in yet. He was _four inches_ taller than Voltehre, and the little bastard still got his Dom voice months ago. The mutagens were supposed to guarantee that all surviving trainees presented as Dominant; some of the smarter monsters could be swayed, so a Dom voice was an important weapon in any witcher’s arsenal. But Lambert didn’t have one, and he was starting to think… he might never.

His combat training became unreliable. He held his own with swordsmanship and signs, but whenever they worked on grappling, Lambert’s concentration slipped. Even just roughhousing with the other trainees, he used to kick Voltehre’s ass eight times out of ten, but now when he wrestled with his friend, the drive to win just… wasn’t there. He actually kind of _liked_ it when Voltehre pinned him down. Once, he even wanked to the memory of Voltehre grabbing his wrists and that… that wasn’t normal.

One of the trainees from another cohort called Lambert a _soft little bitch_ and he went off like a fucking bomb. Lambert didn’t even care that the other boy was nineteen, full-grown, and only weeks away from his last Trial before heading out on the Path—he’d always had a short fuse and a tendency to punch first, ask questions later, so he just leapt on the older boy and started whaling. Predictably, he took a beating, but he got in a few good licks of his own, and at least no one called him _soft_ after that.

.o.O.o.

New witchers spent four years out on the Path alone before they returned to overwinter at Kaer Morhen for the first time as adults. This was one of those winters, and it had Lambert _on edge_. All the instructors and trainees were just fuckin’ waiting around to see how many of the cohort would return, and who had died at the tender age of twenty-whatever like so many sacrificial lambs.

Eskel was first, and then Gascaden, and Clovis. And finally Geralt, who showed up only two days before the snowstorm that closed the pass for the winter. Lambert tried to ignore the whole thing, but Voltehre was annoyingly obsessed with the young witchers and kept trying to wheedle stories out of them. Lambert didn’t fucking get it—it wasn’t like any of them were brilliant wordsmiths. Hell, trainee Geralt from four years ago barely even _spoke_ , as far as he could recall. Geralt was uncomfortably inhuman, with his white hair and his loaded silences, and Lambert wished Voltehre would just stay away from the creepy fucker.

So at first Lambert wasn’t all that concerned when Clovis seemed to take an interest in him, because at least it wasn’t _Geralt_ showing up in weird places as if by accident, trying to make small talk. And to be fair, Lambert wasn’t exactly known for being a wallflower—he snarked at his instructors, got in fist fights, and brewed bombs in the alchemy lab and then set them off in creative ways. He was noticeable—in a way he suspected Voltehre envied—so it wasn’t that surprising when one of the witchers noticed.

Lambert would shoot his mouth off, Clovis would pretend to be stern, Lambert would tell him to fuck off, and Clovis would laugh. It seemed like camaraderie. It was fine. Until the night Clovis asked if Lambert wanted to try White Gull—which he of course was _dying_ to try, because the witchers all drank it, but the trainees weren’t allowed to—and Clovis got him alone.

Clovis did not have a bottle of White Gull in his room.

Lambert stomach dropped; he realized he’d made a very serious tactical error a full two seconds before Clovis was grabbing his arm and manhandling him onto the bed.

“Fuck off, let go of me!” Lambert kicked and tried to twist his arm to break the witcher’s hold, but that hand was like a vise. “Don’t fucking touch me, you perv—”

“ **Stop your whining. I’m gonna give you what you need.** ”

The Dom voice felt like fingers wriggling into his mind. Lambert obeyed. He still squirmed and resisted as Clovis shoved him face down on the mattress, but he didn’t make a sound.

“ **Be a good boy, just lie there and take it.** ”

All his muscles relaxed and he felt weak as a kitten, and Lambert didn’t understand what was happening, why his body was betraying him like this. Clovis pulled Lambert’s trousers down to his knees, and in short order, Clovis was fucking him. Lambert wondered if he was in shock. Each thrust hurt, but it also felt confusingly _good_ to just give in and let Clovis do whatever he wanted. Lambert was terrified, but a creeping, fuzzy sensation smothered his thoughts, and he felt like he had cotton stuffed into not only his ears but all his senses. He wanted to beg Clovis to stop, yet the words wouldn’t form on his tongue.

“ **Come, Lambert.** ”

Lambert orgasmed. It registered in his brain as just… intense. He couldn’t tell whether it was pleasure or pain. He twitched with oversensitivity as Clovis kept plowing him.

There was a loud _bang_ in the room (later, he would think back and understand it was the door being kicked in, but in the moment it was just mysterious sound). And then Clovis’s weight vanished, and Lambert was finally, blessedly empty again.

Lambert turned his head with a vague, detached sort of curiosity, and he saw Geralt.

Geralt had Clovis pinned to the floor and was punching the shit out of him.

Clovis didn’t bother trying to hit back from such a bad position. Instead, he writhed and bucked until he managed to unbalance Geralt for long enough to escape out from under him. But his brief moment of advantage didn’t last—when Clovis scrambled to his feet, Geralt rose up smooth as a predator.

“What the fuck’s your problem?” Clovis demanded, wiping blood off his face with the back of his hand. “The little brat’s been prancing around the keep all winter, just fuckin’ _gagging_ for it. Someone had to put him in his place. Look at him, he _likes_ it.”

In a calm, almost clinical tone, Geralt said, “Touch him again and I’ll kill you.”

“Y’know, I used to think you stopped talking to the rest of us cuz those extra mutagens burned out your brain,” Clovis sneered, “but it turns out you’re just a sanctimonious prick who thinks he’s better than everyone else.”

“Not a challenge,” Geralt said slowly. “To be better than you.”

“Nobody gives a shit about Vesemir’s rules, Geralt! And that obnoxious little bitch needs to get plowed. It’s the only thing that’ll keep his kind under control.”

There was an audible crack and a howl of pain as Geralt broke Clovis’s jaw.

Lambert blinked. He was alone in the room. They must have left, but he didn’t remember watching them leave. The calm fluff that had been muffling his mind was dissipating, and Lambert shivered uncontrollably, cold and alone and fucking _destitute_. His arse throbbed and his hip joints ached, and he didn’t have the strength to move. Everything was awful. He wanted to _die_.

And then a soft voice said, “Hey there, little wolf.” It was Eskel, crouching beside the bed.

Lambert made a whining noise in his throat and buried his face in the mattress, ashamed to be seen like this, whatever _this_ was. As if Eskel could read his thoughts, the witcher draped a soft blanket over him and tucked it in around Lambert’s shivering body.

“Are you injured”—Eskel swallowed audibly—“anywhere else?”

“No,” Lambert mumbled, a fresh wave of humiliation washing through him when he understood that Eskel had seen him bleeding— bleeding from—

“Shh, you’re okay, cub,” Eskel soothed, probably scenting his distress. “We’re just gonna rest here until you feel well enough to move.”

“Geralt…?” Lambert mumbled, not quite certain what he was trying to ask.

“Geralt’s not so great at the talking part, that’s why he went to get me, but he’s right outside the door. You’re safe now.”

Eskel brushed a hand gently over Lambert’s hair. It felt comforting and disorienting in equal measure—strange to be touched with such care, when the ghost-memory of other hands were still pressing bruises into his skin.

“Lambert… do you understand what happened?”

Lambert shook his head.

“The way you reacted was instinct. It’s important that you know it wasn’t you fault,” Eskel explained. “You’re a submissive.”

.o.O.o.

Lambert had no idea how the story got out, but by the end of the week, it seemed like everyone knew he was a sub… and everyone _also_ knew he belonged to Geralt. Clovis made himself scarce, and now it was Geralt lurking on the periphery—never trying to corner him or talk to him, just glaring with silent menace at anyone who gave him shit. The intensity of Geralt’s regard pulled at him like a lodestone, but the idea of going to Geralt for—for whatever it was Doms did to subs—that thought felt like admitting defeat.

He didn’t want to acknowledge what happened, he didn’t want to make it real by giving in and accepting what he was. So he pretended to be normal _aggressively_ , threw himself back into training, mentally filed away the incident with Clovis as just another chapter in an autobiography titled _Life Is Pain_. A month went by and the snows were starting to melt, and Lambert felt like he was crawling out of his skin.

Finally one afternoon, Eskel caught him in the corridor. Literally caught him—Eskel clapped a firm hand onto the back of his neck, and the sudden shock of pleasure that quaked through him almost sent him to his knees. Lambert couldn’t even remember why he might want to resist as Eskel steered him inside the Evening Hall and brought him over near the hearth, where Geralt sat stiff and stony-faced on a couch.

“Look, little wolf—you need to let somebody Dom you, or your mind is gonna crack like a frickin’ egg. Subspace is a biological need, you can’t just ignore it and hope it goes away. And you.” Eskel turned on Geralt. “You giant lummox. You’re not gonna hurt him just by touching him, Geralt. The lad isn’t made of glass.”

Gently but firmly, Eskel sat Lambert down on the couch and leaned him against Geralt. The manhandling made Lambert’s cock half-hard, and he let out a soft sob as his heart kicked against his ribs in fear. They could do _anything_ they wanted to him, and Lambert wouldn’t know how to make it stop. He was weak and helpless and needy, and he hated himself for it.

But Geralt’s hands didn’t stray anywhere near his crotch. He brushed up and down Lambert’s spine, pressed his fingers pleasantly into the nape of his neck. It felt good—not in an arousing way, more like how his mother used to rub homemade balm over his stinging back after his father took a switch to him. Geralt was easing a pain he hadn’t been fully aware of until the relief of its absence washed through him.

Eskel was still there, his Dom voice soft and warm as the blanket he’d tucked around Lambert right after it happened. “ **Focus on the touch. Let your mind relax into it.** ”

Lambert squirmed closer, practically climbing in Geralt’s lap, smushing his face into Geralt’s chest. He couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t need to have his guard up—ever, in his life. Even after living at Kaer Morhen for almost six years, there was a part of his brain that was still alert for the next backhand from his father. Letting go of that vigilance left him suddenly weightless, the tension melting from his muscles, his usual racing thoughts slowing and softening to fluff.

He could feel Geralt’s voice rumble in his chest. “ **That's good. Doing so well for me.** ”

The praise soaked in, euphoric and serene. Lambert didn’t generally think of himself as good, but if Geralt said it, it must be all right to believe it, just this once. He floated on a calm sea, warm and safe and relaxed for the first time in his life.

There was no need to worry. His Dom would care for him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning from the last chapter is still in effect. There’s also some physical violence, victim blaming, and unhealthy self-perception.

Lambert was seventeen, and he was gonna _break some shit_ if Geralt and Eskel didn’t hurry up and get their arses back to Kaer Morhen for the winter. They were late; the past two winters they’d been careful to arrive early, and now they were late.

Lambert wasn’t fucking worried. He just. _Fuck_.

When he lay wide awake in the middle of the night, breathing too fast and fingers clawing at the blankets, Voltehre left his own bunk and climbed into Lambert’s. “They’ll be here, Geralt would never abandon you,” he murmured in Lambert’s ear. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

Lambert snorted. _Everything’s going to be okay_ was not a sentiment that held up to scrutiny, in his experience. But he allowed his friend to hold him and guide him quietly into subspace.

Geralt and Eskel did not arrive the next day, or the day after that. A week later, the first real storm of the winter arrived instead—a howling blizzard that turned the air into a churning mass of white. The trail to the keep, which was hazardous in the best conditions, would be rendered impassable, and anyone currently trying to navigate it would likely freeze to death. Lambert had to walk out of the indoor training salle in the middle of practice because he was so anxious he thought he was going to hurl.

He didn’t try to sleep that night, didn’t even go back to the dorm because if he did, Voltehre would feel responsible for calming him down. Lambert didn’t want to be calm; his world was quite possibly falling apart and he had a right to freak out about it, fuck you very much. He puttered around the alchemy lab for a bit, and then when he deemed it late enough, went to the kitchen to see about scrounging some unattended alcohol.

He was sniffing a jug someone had left out on the counter (slightly soured ale, not what he was hoping for) when a voice behind him said, “Look at you, out and about after bedtime.”

The blood froze in Lambert’s veins. He knew that voice. He turned slowly toward the doorway of the kitchen. “What the fuck do you want, Clovis?”

Clovis scraped his gaze over Lambert in a way that made him feel dirty. “You’re a needy little brat, aren’t you?” Clovis said, staring like a predator, stalking a few steps closer. “Whose cock are you gonna suck all winter, now that Geralt’s dead?”

Lambert scoffed. Any Wolf with half a nose could tell that Geralt and Eskel were Domming him without fucking him. Sure, Lambert spent the winter with their smells clinging to his clothes, but he never smelled like their _come._ The only person’s come he was swallowing was Voltehre’s, and that only started after a frankly embarrassing amount of reassurance that, yes, he really _did_ want to fuck, and no Lambert did _not_ feel in any way coerced. Voltehre was his best friend, and they could jerk each other off like any other pair of horny recruits, designations be damned.

But he wasn’t about to share any of that with fucking _Clovis_. “Geralt’s not dead, you inbred nekker fucker. He’s just… late.”

Clovis shoved him hard against the kitchen counter, the edge of the wood jabbing into his diaphragm like a punch, making his lungs seize. Lambert came back at him with an elbow to the ribs, and then white pain exploded in his face. But this was hardly the first time in his life he’d been punched; hell, he’d been taking hits at home even before he was dragged to Kaer Morhen as a boy. He got in a solid kick to Clovis’s knee that almost toppled the witcher, but then…

“ **On your knees, boy,** ” Clovis demanded with full-strength Dom voice.

“Oh, fuck you!”

Voltehre had been helping him work on mental resistance, but the command still pulled at his mind like quicksand. He locked his muscles and shook with the effort of staying on his feet. Refusing to be swayed took most of his concentration, and his reaction time suffered.

Before the movement even registered, Clovis snuck his leg behind Lambert’s ankles and flipped him to the floor, his chin hitting the stone in another flash of pain. Clovis jammed a knee into his back between his shoulderblades, and panic set in. Lambert’s hands scrabbled against the slate floor, he tried to push himself up but his strength abandoned him. His mind was fuzzing out, starting to confuse force with pleasure.

Lambert knew what was happening. But it was not better the second time.

.o.O.o.

The bruising in his face had mostly healed by the following evening. Everyone was seated at the two long dining tables, Voltehre hovering beside Lambert with a fixed, furious expression. The food was being passed around when the front doors of the keep banged open, and Geralt and Eskel entered in a flurry of white, the blizzard still raging outside.

Eskel paused to shake out his cloak and bang the snow off his boots, but Geralt’s intense gaze swept over the crowd and landed quickly on Lambert. Seeing them alive, Lambert felt like a kettle boiling over with emotion—relief so strong it left him dizzy, anger that they’d arrived _too late_ , shame that he couldn’t manage on his own for a couple weeks without them. There was no time to process all of this, as Geralt crossed the entryway to him in a few quick strides.

Geralt grabbed him by the back of his neck and stood him up, and Lambert went immediately pliant in his hands. This was Geralt, he’d never take liberties; all Geralt wanted was to run his nose along Lambert’s neck, scenting his skin. Part of Lambert was humiliated at getting scruffed like a kitten in front of the whole dining hall, but he also felt… so fucking _safe_ , like for the first time in his life someone actually gave a shit enough to take care of him. And maybe that was unfair to Voltehre, who definitely gave a shit, but Voltehre was essentially powerless to protect him and Geralt was not.

“Hmm,” Geralt huffed, and sat Lambert back down in his seat.

Geralt did not smell like rage; with his emotions muted by the extra Trial he’d endured, he never really smelled like anything, at least at a distance. Maybe that was why none of the other witchers figured out what was happening until it was too late to intervene. But Lambert was sure as fuck watching.

Geralt walked up behind Clovis, where he sat at the other table.

“Clovis,” he said, voice perfectly calm.

Clovis glanced up over his shoulder and opened his mouth to speak. Too fast to see, Geralt’s hand went for his sword hilt, and he cleaved Clovis in half, right there in his dining chair.

There was an eruption of blood and guts, followed by a second of absolute silence, before the room exploded into chaos.

Geralt let go of the hilt of his sword and put up no resistance as he was piled on by every witcher close enough to react. Eskel vaulted over the table, screaming, “Don’t kill him! Don’t kill him!” and Lambert’s vicious joy turned to ashes in his mouth, because it honestly hadn’t occurred to him that there might be consequences for Geralt. That a witcher who killed one of his own in cold blood over dinner might be declared feral and put down like a rabid dog.

Lambert wasn’t even aware of getting out of his seat until he was halfway across the room, shouting Geralt’s name, while Voltehre tried to hold him back from the fray with an arm clamped around his waist.

“Let me go! Fuck! If they kill him, it’s my fault!”

“No,” Voltehre said firmly. “None of this is on you.”

It’d be really fucking nice if that were true, but it wasn’t. Lambert was the freak who survived the mutagens but came out wrong; he was the sub who couldn’t defend himself and needed his Dom to rush to his rescue. Now Geralt might die because of Lambert’s weakness, and that was a bitter potion to swallow.

But they did not kill Geralt—not that night, anyway.

.o.O.o.

Geralt was held under guard while the older witchers decided whether he could be salvaged.

They questioned Lambert exhaustively. Every humiliating detail of the incidents—both this winter and three years ago—was dragged into the light to be scrutinized. There was debate among the instructors about whether Lambert _really_ didn’t want it, and whether Clovis could be expected to know that Lambert didn’t want it. In the end it was determined that Clovis had unequivocally and knowingly provoked Geralt, and therefore the killing was, if not justified, at least comprehensible. Geralt was not an unpredictable, out-of-control monster, and was not at risk of indiscriminately slaughtering innocent humans. So: he would be allowed to live and continue to perform his duties on the Path.

It should have been a relief, but the verdict stayed with Lambert like a thorn embedded under his skin. Clovis’s death was deemed righteous not because he was a rapist, but because he’d antagonized Geralt. Apparently, Lambert’s submissiveness could be used against him with impunity. He would have to get better at protecting himself, at hiding his status.

That was the day he swore that no one outside Kaer Morhen would ever know.


End file.
